


Sealed With A Kiss

by Ryxl



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Brief appearances of other characters - Freeform, Jack in a dress, Love Letters, M/M, Mawwiage, Old Soldiers events, Reyes and Morrison sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G, Secret Admirer, mentions of SEP body horror, secret husbands, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-23 18:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19707484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryxl/pseuds/Ryxl
Summary: Jack Morrison, newly-minted Strike Commander, was floundering in his position. Then he got a love letter from a secret admirer, and things didn't seem so bad after all. As the years passed, he forgot about the mysterious man who bolstered his confidence through pen and paper, but his secret admirer never forgot about him. He'll find out eventually.I was paired withMagicKing(twitter) for theReaper76 Reverse Big Bang!





	Sealed With A Kiss

Reporters, Jack thought with a smile he _certainly_ did not feel, were worse than omnics.

Omnics, for all that they had been hell-bent on destroying humanity and were 100% pure nightmare fuel to actually fight, _could be shot_. Reporters had to be smiled at, even when what they were asking was insensitive at best and infuriating at the worst, and given polite answers. He’d rather be facing a line of Bastion units in the middle of flaming rubble, with his pulse rifle heavy in his hands and Reyes barking orders in the background, breathing in the mingled scents of burning electronics and his own sweat.

Instead, he smiled _yet again_ and extended his hand - encased in a pristine white glove - for another handshake, mouthing pleasantries he meant the opposite of, and wished for an excuse to escape from the...awards ceremony? He honestly wasn’t sure what exactly the purpose of this formal event was.

“At ease, Morrison,” growled a familiar voice from the side, and he felt himself relax into parade rest as Gabriel Reyes stepped into position beside him.

“Easy for you to say,” he shot back quietly. “You’re not the one in the spotlight anymore.”

“And I thank God every day for that,” Reyes retorted, grinning.

The formal uniform - not to mention the barber he’d visited yesterday - made Reyes look _unfairly_ attractive. Not that he was interested, really. He still had feelings for Vincent, strong ones, and the fact that he’d been invited to the wedding but couldn’t attend because he was _here_ didn’t do anything to help. So emotionally, he wasn’t interested. But physically?

Well, his body remembered _very_ clearly that it had been a long, looooooong time since he’d gone past first base.

Not that he was going to be able to rectify that situation anytime soon. With all the meetings and conferences and press reports and the _preparation_ for press reports - was it _really_ necessary to have someone put makeup on him for an hour beforehand, every time? - and all the god-damned paperwork, he was lucky if he managed to take a nice, hot shower without falling asleep in it before collapsing into bed, and a minor miracle if he had the energy to jerk it. This job was sucking the life out of him, and it had only been a couple of months.

If he’d known what being Strike-Commander would be like, he’s pretty sure he would have whipped it out and pissed on the generals and assorted officials and happily lived the rest of his life with a dishonorable discharge. It wouldn’t have saved his relationship with Vincent, but at least he’d have the freedom to go to a bar and make questionable life choices instead of wearing a hot, itchy uniform with his face caked in cosmetics and having to smile at strangers asking invasive questions with a camera rolling in his face.

“You’ve got that look again,” Reyes said quietly.

Immediately, Jack schooled face into a masklike smile. “Sorry.”

“You’ll be fine. You’ve got the perfect Boy Scout look. They’ll lap up any bullshit you spin them.”

That wasn’t what was causing the ‘I’m about to jump out a window’ look, but Jack really didn’t want to discuss his failed love life with anyone, even the former commanding officer he trusted with his life. “Thanks,” he muttered. Then the words sank in. “Wait - what do you mean, bullshit?”

Reyes gave him a look one part surprise and two parts sympathy. “Jackie...you’re giving a speech, remember?”

He was giving a speech. Crap. Had he written one? Had someone else? He couldn’t remember.

Jumping out the window was looking more and more attractive.

* * *

Waking up the next day and realizing that Vincent was now happily married made Jack want to roll over and go back to bed, or maybe see if he could find something alcoholic. But for a minor miracle he had a free morning-

Well. He had ‘routine physical fitness’ scheduled for three hours, but being able to lose himself in physical exertion was the closest to ‘free’ he’d been experiencing since taking this godforsaken job, and he wasn’t going to waste it. He threw on sweats and sneakers and jogged through the nearly-empty halls to the officer’s gym, looking forward to not having to _think_ past counting reps.

After the best three hours he’d had so far this week, he trotted back to his quarters for a long, hot shower that turned into a standing nap, and had to dry himself quickly and dress even faster before forcing himself into the closet they called his office to go through his daily correspondence. It was a waste of his time, he thought as he walked through the halls, wishing he’d thought to get himself some breakfast. Coffee, at least. There was never anything _important_ that got sent to the Strike-Commander without being filtered out, processed, and added to his schedule for him. That left what was basically complaints and fanmail that he was expected to reply to.

Politely.

_Dear Jenny, thank you so much for pledging undying love to me, but you’re a 16-year-old girl and I’m gay. I’m afraid it just wouldn’t work. Go find yourself a nice boy your own age. Sincerely, Jack Morrison, Strike-Commander._

_Dear Mr. Roberts, I’m so sorry that we ruined your favorite fishing spot while saving you from the omnics trying to kill you. I’ll see if we can organize a workforce for rebuilding the forest, re-shaping the stream, and re-stocking the fish. Sincerely, Jack Morrison, Strike-Commander._

It was taking public service into public servitude, and the only thing that made it better than the rest of his duties was that he didn’t have to smile at anyone while he did it, and no one was listening to every word that came out of his mouth.

He was halfway through the pile when he opened an envelope and another envelope fell out.

This wasn’t all _that_ unusual, although the fact that the envelope was pink made him sigh. The teenage girls sometimes wanted to send an envelope that wasn’t suitable for sending through the mail by itself, so they put it in a cleaner, more ‘official’ envelope. Resigning himself to yet another underage girl throwing herself at him, he turned it over-

That...

That wasn’t a teenage girl’s handwriting.

It wasn’t curly and ‘cute’. There were no extraneous hearts, no glitter, no stickers. The front of the envelope simply said _Jack Morrison, Strike-Commander_ in elegant, precise letters that fell just short of being calligraphy.

Curious now, he turned it over and examined the back again. No stickers, no glitter, no hearts. Just a faint discoloration in the center where someone had applied lip gloss and then kissed the envelope.

What _was_ this?

Carefully, he slit the top of the envelope and pulled out the folded paper inside. It was creamy rather than starkly white, thicker than regular paper meant for everyday use and very smooth. His fingers trembled as he unfolded it, and he wasn’t sure if it was excitement or apprehension or both.

It was a letter, taking up two-thirds of the page and written in a deep purple ink, each letter precisely formed and elegant. Fountain pen, he thought, his eyes darting to the bottom.

_Love,_

_Your Secret Admirer_

What?

That lip-gloss kiss...was this a love letter? Despite himself, he felt his pulse quicken. He wasn’t looking for another relationship, of course, not with his- with Vincent having gotten married just yesterday, but the idea of being admired by an _adult_ , someone who knew how to use a fountain pen...well, it was flattering in a way that the teenage love letters weren’t, and he wrenched his gaze back to the top of the page to read the letter from the start.

_To the light that pulls me from the darkness, Jack Morrison:_

_Last night, at the gala, you were a vision of perfection. Like a sculptor’s masterpiece you were polished until you stood out from the crowd, the dreams of a thousand men and women made manifest in human form, an angel come to earth._

_But in your eyes, I saw sadness. Grief. Exhaustion. And it made me grieve, too, that anything could cause you such pain. I wished to be able to reach out, to take you in my arms and be your safe refuge from the world, to lay your head on my shoulder and give you even one moment of comfort. Alas for the gulf that stands between us! And so I send you this letter, the first of many, that it might bear my words to you._

_Stand strong, Jack. You are the mighty oak that withstands the storms, tall and noble, and you will endure for the ages. This storm will pass, and your light will shine again. I have faith in you._

_Love,_

_Your Secret Admirer_

Well, now he was blushing.

It wasn’t just that he was being physically admired, he thought as he reverently folded the paper back up. It was that someone saw his unhappiness and cared enough to even _want_ to help, much less went through the effort of writing this gorgeous piece of correspondence and mailing it- he checked the envelope it had come in - express overnight/same-day delivery. That couldn’t have been cheap, he realized as he tucked the letter back into the pink envelope, and he examined the outer envelope more closely, but his secret admirer had used a remailer service. There was no way to tell where he, they, or she was just based on the envelopes, but Jack found that he didn’t really care.

He had a secret admirer. _Someone_ adored him, wanted to ease his pain, thought he was gorgeous, and had _faith_ in him.

And somehow, knowing that, things didn’t seem so horrible.

He kept the letter in his jacket all day, its almost-imperceptible presence a reminder that he had _a secret admirer_ who was undoubtedly educated and well-enough off to burn cash mailing him an overnight love letter. It gave him the strength to get through the day without seriously entertaining the thought of jumping out a window, and with a pang of selfishness he wondered when his admirer would send the next one. Reyes and Amari both commented on how alert he seemed, but he didn’t say a word about the reason for that. Part of him felt silly admitting to being so affected by a love letter, but the rest of him wanted to keep this sparkling secret to himself.

As he lay in bed, waiting for sleep to come, he wondered about the sender. Was his admirer male, female, intersex, genderqueer, nonbinary, or maybe agender? The hand that held the fountain pen - was it black or red, yellow or olive, tan or peach or bronze? A youthful but educated twenty, an established forty, a jaded sixty, a still-vibrant eighty? What sort of voice had murmured those words as they had been carefully, so carefully, drawn letter by letter onto the paper?

For the moment, he decided, it didn’t matter. _Someone_ believed in him. _Someone_ cared, and for now, that was enough.

* * *

The next letter came just a day or two later, and his admirer assured him that he knew Jack’s orientation and would not be presenting his admiration so openly if he did not identify as absolutely male. So now he had pronouns, and it was reassuring to know that he wouldn’t be disappointing his admirer by not being of a compatible orientation. Now he could daydream about strong arms in a rainbow of skin tones, about eyes in an array of colors, and it hurt a little less to think about Vincent.

His admirer didn’t say a word about the wedding, and Jack was a tiny bit relieved that he’d kept it quiet enough for word not to get out. He may not have been able to give Vincent the life he deserved, but he at least managed to give him peace from the swarm of reporters that buzzed around him like flies on roadkill. Even Amari and Reyes hadn’t mentioned Vincent or the wedding, and Jack hoped they didn’t know. The last thing he wanted while he was nursing a broken heart was pity.

The letters came every few days, and checking his mail quickly became the highlight of Jack’s days. For lack of anything more elegant to call him, he started thinking of his admirer as Swak after the kisses he sealed all his envelopes with. It didn’t escape his thoughts that he could take the envelopes down to the labs and see if there was any genetic material to be retrieved, but finding the identity of his admirer wasn’t a priority and to be honest, he preferred the nice, safe fantasy over a potentially messy reality.

Weeks passed, and months, and Jack always had the latest letter from Swak on his person. Whoever he was, he was deeply observant and would comment on any media coverage - whether Jack looked stressed or confident, how he handled the reporters and anyone else he was talking to, and of course how he looked. Although he didn’t even try to pretend that he wasn’t attracted to Jack, none of the fantasies he wrote about were sexual. Hugging, cuddling, massages, or just sitting quietly and holding hands. Watching the rain. Watching a fire in a fireplace. Platonic activities that reassured Jack his admirer wasn’t just after his ass. There was no speculation about anything the cameras didn’t catch, either - both regarding activities and his body.

It took Jack a couple of weeks before he realized that Swak only ever talked about his televised presence. After chewing on it for a few days, he realized it meant one of two things. First, Swak _only_ saw him on television. That was the more likely explanation: he had an admirer from somewhere else in the world who was invested enough to pore over every scrap of media presence Jack had. The second possibility was that Swak was someone who knew him in person, but was clever enough to _only_ refer to his televised appearances. He considered that possibility too far-fetched to entertain, aside from the fact that it would mean trying to double-guess _literally everyone in his life_ and for his sanity’s sake, he disregarded that possibility entirely.

Still, for a number of reasons _including_ the remote chance that Swak was someone he knew, he kept his admirer a secret. The letters piled up - carefully numbered and dated, in their envelopes - in the top drawer of his dresser, and when the stress of being Strike-Commander got to him too badly, he took them out and re-read them.

As predicted, Jack eventually settled into his position and no longer thought longingly of battlefields or self-defenestration. Swak praised him every step of the way, pride glowing from every word as he grew into a confident leader. Although now technically their superiors, he made sure to keep his friendships with the other Strike Force members strong, and it was a shock one day to be showering in the officer’s gym with Reyes after an extended sparring session and catch himself admiring the curves of the other man’s back.

“I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly when Reyes caught him staring at nothing and asked if he was okay, but the truth was that he was imagining what it would feel like to snuggle up to that beautiful, powerful back after a long day, and how it would feel to press his face between those shoulderblades as his arms wrapped around Gabriel’s torso, and now he was thinking of Reyes by his first name.

Great.

It was a hell of a way to realize that he’d gotten over Vincent, that was for certain. Fantasizing about his best friend? And not even sexual fantasies, but domestic ones. Morning kisses, soft smiles, briefings over breakfast and encouraging endearments before conferences.

That night, he fantasized about Swak as usual when he masturbated, but it wasn’t really coincidence that his secret admirer was a well-muscled Latino with a warm smile.

A few days later, when the familiar pink envelope fell out of a remailer envelope, he hesitated. Slowly, he sliced the top open and pulled out the letter, but it was with trepidation that he unfolded it.

This was serious. He wasn’t just over his broken heart, but he was also over even _having_ a secret admirer. He didn’t _want_ fantasies about a man he would never meet, not anymore. He wanted to focus on the possibility of seeing if Gabriel was interested in more than what they had. Almost reluctantly, he brought his gaze to the top of the paper.

_To the angel of my dreams and the song of my heart, Jack Morrison_

_It is with pride and sadness that I write these words. I have watched you grow into your strength and confidence, and it brings me indescribable joy to see you with the nobility of an eagle and the ferocity of a lion. But you have transcended both beasts, and like a majestic gryphon you inspire both awe and loyalty, a shining ideal made flesh. To keep you any further in the nest of my admiration would only hinder you, for you have outgrown the need for a secret admirer to tell you how magnificent you are when the world tries to convince you that you are not._

_You no longer need me, and it brings me joy and grief to tell you that this will be my last letter._

_Whatever new adventures life brings you, know that I will be watching with love._

_Your Secret Admirer_

Jack blinked, surprised by the sense of loss he felt even as relief swept through him. Swak was right; he _had_ outgrown the need for a secret admirer, and he was suddenly sorry that he would never be able to tell the man how much he appreciated every letter. When he left his office, this last letter came with him in his jacket, but where the others had been talismans of strength, this one was a token of remembrance. Instead of going straight out to meet Gabriel for lunch, he made a quick detour to place this letter with its brethren.

It felt odd, not carrying one of Swak’s letters in his jacket, but at the same time it was almost freeing. Leaving the nest indeed; he was spreading his wings and learning how to fly on his own.

Gabriel was already at the cafe waiting when Jack finally arrived, seated outside with drinks and a basket of chips that he was nibbling on. He looked up and _smiled_ as Jack approached the table, an expression of pure, relieved delight that made butterflies dance in Jack’s stomach as he sat down.

“Thought you were going to stand me up,” Gabriel joked, passing Jack a menu.

“Perish the thought,” he replied loftily. “I just had some correspondence to take care of.”

The smile faded into something more solemn. “Jack,” he said slowly, “are you okay?”

Jack frowned.

“I mean...in the beginning of the Crisis, you talked about Vincent almost constantly, but somewhere along the line something changed and you haven’t mentioned him at all in...close to a year.”

“It’s fine,” Jack said shortly, his eyes on the chip he was toying with. Then he sighed. “We broke up a while back. It was rough for a while, but I’m okay now.”

Gabriel reached out to close his hands around Jack’s. “Are you really? Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re okay, Jackie.”

Hesitantly, Jack raised his head and allowed himself to get lost in the rich caramel of Gabriel’s eyes. “I’m okay,” he said softly, his lips curving into a shy smile. “I really am, Gabe. I wasn’t for a while, but I am now.”

“Good,” Gabriel said, his voice equally soft, “because I wanted to ask you out on an _actual_ date, not a meal as friends, but only if you were okay with the idea.”

This time, Jack’s smile was as brilliant as Swak always said his light was. “I’d like that,” he said, dropping the chip to hold Gabriel’s hands. “I’d like that a lot.”

Slowly, Gabriel leaned across the table and Jack found himself leaning forward as well, fingers tightening in silent reassurance as their lips came closer and closer and finally brushed with an electric tingle of adrenaline that felt _wildly_ at odds with the softness of Gabe’s lips.

* * *

Three years later

* * *

“Your birthday’s coming up,” Jack said as he emerged from the shower wearing nothing but a towel, a second one busy rubbing his hair dry.

Gabriel, carefully shaving his face, grunted.

“I know, I know.” Jack kissed his boyfriend’s shoulder in apology. “You don’t like your birthday.”

“Three goddamned minutes too late to be born on Halloween,” was the grumbled response.

“You never let me do anything for it, though. Not even a card, and I really want to do something for you at least once.”

In the mirror, Gabriel could see Jack giving him puppy eyes, and he sighed. “I don’t _want_ anything for my birthday, though. I’d rather save it for Valentine’s, and spoil you while you spoil me.”

The puppy eyes turned into something genuinely unhappy. “Babe...”

Gabriel sighed again, wincing away from the hurt in his boyfriend’s eyes.

“There has to be _something_ you want, Gabe. Please. Just let me do _something_ for you, just this once, and I’ll never bring it up again.”

“There _is_ something that would make me like my birthday,” Gabriel admitted grudgingly, “but it’s big. Really big.”

“That’s what _he_ said,” Jack retorted with a grin.

Despite himself, Gabriel cracked up.

Jack broke out his best wheedling voice. “C’mon, babe. Tell me what you want.”

“What I _really, really want?”_ Gabriel teased back, earning an outraged sound for his ancient musical reference.

“Yes,” pouted Jack, arms crossed and the towel draped, forgotten, over his head.

Gabriel rinsed the last bits of shaving cream off his face, delaying his response as long as possible, and closed his eyes before saying quietly, “I want to get married.”

Jack opened his mouth, realized Gabe was bracing for rejection, and closed it again. They’d had the should-we-shouldn’t-we talk before, many times, but as much as Jack liked the idea of marrying Gabriel, he _loathed_ the idea of word getting out.

Reporters making sly insinuations.

Governments second-guessing his decisions because of his relationship.

Enemies trying to use Gabriel as leverage against him.

Complete strangers asking who ‘topped’, as if that had anything to do with _anything_.

The fact that they were together hadn’t caused a stir only because they kept their relationship strictly platonic in public, even from the lower ranks of Overwatch, and it _still_ made him uneasy thinking about the press finding out.

But, Jack had to admit, if they weren’t public figures? He’d _carry_ Gabriel to a church and tie the knot. And Gabriel wanted to get married badly enough that it overrode his distaste for his three-minutes-late birthday.

Maybe...maybe there was another way.

“Legally married?” Jack asked slowly.

Gabe looked at him, eyes wide like he was afraid to hope. “Legal’s not important.”

“You just want to know I’m yours, and you’re mine, until death do us part?”

“I want it so bad, Jackie,” he breathed. “Even if we have to bribe a village priest somewhere to say the words. No one has to know - just you, me, the priest, and God.”

“That sounds nice,” Jack said softly. “You want to get married on your birthday? Is that what will make you like the day?”

Gabriel gathered him into his arms. “Nah. Halloween anniversary would be the _best_. But waking up and having you be my husband? _That_ will make me happy on my birthday.”

Jack laid his head on Gabe’s shoulder, ignoring the towel as it slipped off his head and fell to the floor. “Okay. Let’s make it happen.”

“You mean that?” Gabe asked, hugging Jack tight.

“Yeah. I’ll let you figure out the details; you’re the tactical genius, not me.”

Gabe chuckled. “I certainly am. Alright, I’ll think about it and report back with with a plan.”

Jack smiled into his shoulder, but Gabriel pulled away just enough for a proper kiss.

His lips were, as always, as warm and soft as his love.

* * *

“I’ve got a plan,” Gabe said as he strolled into Jack’s office.

Jack had just enough time to blank his desk before there was a smiling fiancé sprawled across the surface, perfectly well aware of how sexy he was.

“Thank god,” he sighed, leaning down to kiss Gabriel. “We’ve got less than two weeks. Where are we going?”

Gabe smirked “To the party.”

“But-”

“Jackie, Jackie, Jackie...don’t you _trust_ me?” The expression of feigned hurt was ruined by how hard his lips were twitching, and Jack found himself smiling.

“Okay,” he said dryly, “what’s the rest of the plan?”

Two fingers started walking up his chest. “We go to the Halloween party, in costume...”

“Nothing new there.”

“The costumes are _vaguely_ wedding themed.”

“Makes sense so far.”

“At some point during the night, a ‘drunken priest’ comes up to us and declares that we have to get married. Then, in front of all our friends, we do it. We get married. It’ll be a short ceremony, but that’s okay, isn’t it?”

Jack kissed the fingers which had walked up to his lips. “Yeah, that’s fine. And I like having all our friends there, but not knowing what’s going to happen.”

“Or that it’s real,” Gabriel said with a sly smile. “Just you, me, the priest, and God. Everyone else will assume it’s just a joke because of the costumes.”

“I’m going to need ID on the priest to get him past Security,” Jack said, but Gabe’s smile widened.

“Oh, that’s taken care of. Reinhardt’s ordained.”

Jack blinked. “He is?”

“Yup. Part of being a Crusader, apparently. Caught him giving Last Rights during the Crisis and we had a talk about it. Turns out, he’s very private in his faith and keeps it a secret, which works to our advantage because if _you_ didn’t know, neither will anyone else.”

Jack found a broad smile stretching across his face. “We’re going to get _married,_ with all our friends there, and none of them will know that what they saw is real. Babe, you are hands-down the best. I’m so lucky.”

Gabriel levered himself up for a kiss. “No,” he said softly. “I’m the lucky one. I have _you.”_

“Until death do us part,” Jack agreed.

“I’ll let you get back to pretending to do paperwork while you try to guess what costumes I have planned,” Gabe teased. “See you at dinner, Jackie.”

Jack made a face, but stole another kiss before his fiancé moved out of reach. “See you at dinner, babe. Love you.”

Halfway to the door, Gabe turned to flash him a brilliant smile. “Love you too.”

And then he was gone, leaving Jack with paperwork he could no longer concentrate on.

* * *

Gabriel, dramatic costuming nerd that he was, kept their costumes a secret until two hours before the party. Jack had been kept in his office by a last-minute conference call, and he hurried into their quarters only to discover his fiancé in the bathroom and two costumes hanging from doorframes: an archaic tuxedo, and a wedding dress that had been slashed, singed, and splashed artistically with fake blood.

He _thought_ it was fake blood, anyway. Gabriel could have requisitioned a unit of blood from medical for all he knew.

Given the other man’s occasional flair for showing off that he looked good as _any_ gender, Jack mentally dismissed the dress and was examining the tux when Gabriel came out of the bathroom and uttered a very convincingly wicked laugh.

“Hy vant to suck your dick,” he said in a classic cinematic vampire voice.

“I’m not stopping y- _aah, no, not with those!”_ Jack recoiled as the wicked points of Gabe’s canines registered.

Gabriel laughed harder, the impressively sharp prosthetic fangs flashing among his real teeth. His eyes, Jack noticed, were blood red.

“Bride of Dracula?” Jack asked, glancing warily at the damaged dress.

“Dracula,” Gabe corrected, grinning. “There’s a cape on the bed along with your shoes.”

“ _My_ shoes?”

“You’re going to be a murdered bride,” he announced happily. “I’ve got a wig already damaged for you in the bathroom, and you get a nice butcher’s knife. Dull, of course.”

“ _I’m_ going to be...”

“Our costumes had to be wedding-related enough for it to look spur-of-the-moment,” Gabriel explained.

“But why aren’t _you_ in the dress?” Jack asked, wincing a little at how whiny that came out.

Gabriel pulled one of Jack’s hands to his lips and kissed it softly. “Because, _mi amor_ , I want you to get married looking at me like I’m the most attractive thing you’ve ever seen, and me looking stunning in a dress doesn’t get you wanting to pin me to a wall and kiss me like you mean it.”

Jack couldn’t argue with that, and certainly not when he was blushing.

“Well,” he said awkwardly, flustered by the reminder that they were getting _married_ in a few hours, “you _have_ wanted to see me in a dress for a while.”

“I have,” Gabe agreed, smiling warmly. “And Jackie - you’re going to look _stunning_. Trust me.”

“I do,” he murmured, pulling his fiancé’s hand back to kiss it. “I’m all yours, babe. Do with me what you will.”

Gabe nuzzled at the side of his throat, making him shiver as he remembered the fangs. “Oh,” he breathed, “I _will_. And we’re going to start by getting you out of those clothes.”

Blushing and more than a little aroused, Jack let himself be stripped.

Although he’d seen Gabriel transform himself into a more femme appearance on occasion, he’d never witnessed the full process. Now he found himself a bit dazed by having it performed on him, especially the part with the adhesive bras.

“That’s not going to magically give me cleavage,” he said doubtfully as Gabe applied the two halves of the first one to his pecs.

“Of course not,” Gabe responded absently. “But it’s a start.”

Methodically, he stuck on half a dozen more in a pair of overlapping lines, and then pulled the last one together. The combination of stacked cups and Jack’s own flesh tugged towards the center of his chest did, indeed, wind up giving the convincing illusion of moderate breasts and he had to admit to being impressed. When Gabe helped him into the dress, the illusion was even _more_ convincing and Jack understood how his fiancé had transformed himself so realistically in the past.

“But what about my jawline?” he asked as he looked at himself in the mirror. “Aren’t I a bit...masculine...for a woman?”

“Contouring,” was the answer as Gabriel reached for his prepared cosmetics. “Contouring is magic.” Then, in an adopted voice Jack was certain meant he was quoting someone, he sing-songed, “If the men find out we can shapeshift, they’re going to tell the Church.”

Jack decided he didn’t want to ask.

He sat through what felt like an eternity of Gabe looking critically at his face and attacking it with an assortment of liquids and powders that went beyond the cosmetic preparations for his televised appearances. Finally, Gabriel announced that he was done, but not to move. Then, with his eyes still closed from the last adjustment, he felt what had to be the wig being settled onto his head and...pinned into place?

“Not yet,” Gabe said as Jack started to peel his eyes open, and he closed them again.

More powders and liquids, this time ones that dripped, and then Gabe tugged his hands up and pulled gloves onto them. A good idea, Jack thought. Hide his very manly hands the way the flowing sleeves of the dress hid his big, strong biceps. Then a handle was pressed into one hand and Gabe’s footsteps moved to behind him.

“Now you can open,” he said, and Jack opened his eyes.

He was facing the wide bathroom mirror, but that was the only reason he knew he was looking at himself. His face looked more delicate, the strong lines of his jaw blurred by Gabe’s skills with cosmetics. His eyes looked wider somehow, framed by dark lashes, and his eyebrows had been darkened to match the wig covering his hair. It was a dark brown, mostly braided back with a few curls and wisps tugged artistically loose. One section had been charred, and fake blood matted another part. His face, too, had been artistically painted and splattered with soot and blood; one temple had a nasty fake gash surrounded by bruising and the remnants of heavy bleeding. The wedding dress shrouded his bosom with lace that surged up to become part of the sleeves that flowed down his arms to the white silk gloves - also charred and bloody - that he’d expected to be like his formal gloves but absolutely were _not_. In his right hand, he held a rusty cleaver that certainly looked as if it had been used to chop up something that was alive but also on fire.

He looked beautiful. Terrifying, but _beautiful_.

Over his shoulder, Gabe was gazing at him in hungry admiration and, in a fit of whimsy, he pursed his reddened lips (wait, some of that was blood...yikes) and fluttered his eyelashes at his fiancé. Gabe shook his head and smiled ruefully.

“Just wait,” he mock-threatened. “It’s my turn to give the Church something to get all torches-and-pitchforks over. Go put your shoes on and don’t touch your face.”

Laughing, Jack left the bathroom. His shoes were satin slippers with a surprising amount of cushion and support, dirty and artfully splattered with blood. He slipped them on easily and practiced walking for a few minutes before Gabe emerged to grab his costume and retreat again. A few more minutes later, Dracula ghosted out with his cape held before him. He skulked closer to Jack, flaring it dramatically as he lunged, and Jack mock-screamed even as his body decided to prove that yes, he _did_ need that dance belt.

Gabe had somehow given himself an ashy complexion and reddened his lips with a combination of lipstick and fake blood. The tux accentuated the lines of his body and his gelled-back hair somehow made the red of his contacts brighter. He looked like he could absolutely drain the life from Jack’s body, but that Jack would enjoy every second of it.

“ _That’s_ the look,” Gabe purred, relaxing from his dramatic pose. 

“Guilty as charged,” Jack replied, his voice rough with arousal because he did, indeed, want to pin his future husband to the wall and kiss him until they both needed a cold shower - or a warm bed.

Or a desk. Or a table. Or just some lube, actually. They weren’t picky.

“Let’s go party,” Gabe purred, extending one hand that Jack, blushing slightly, took.

The Halloween party was, as usual, being held in the Overwatch ballroom. It was an Overwatch-only event the way Christmas wasn’t, and all the higher ranks were invited. There was food of all kinds, an abundance of alcohol, silly games, storytelling, pranks, and no judgment. While the Christmas party was full of foreign dignitaries and politicians, requiring everyone to be on their best and cleanest behavior, the Halloween party was like Vegas: “anything goes” was the motto, and what happened during the party was politely ignored or denied the rest of the year. Costumes were a must, some of them cheap and some expensive, some improvised and some bought, and there was always a good percentage of attendees whose goal was _not_ to be recognized.

This year, Jack was in that category.

He entered through a side entrance while Gabriel strode dramatically through the main doors and skulked around the edges of the crowds, giving attendees looks that were mournful, fearful, or vengeful depending on who it was and how his mood struck him. Uncertain as to his ability to sound convincingly feminine, Jack remained completely silent and actively fled from any attempt to converse with him. It was surprisingly fun.

The party was a different experience as an anonymous, silent guest. He nibbled the food - carefully, mindfully of his makeup - and abstained from the alcohol, watched the games and listened to the stories, and took no small amount of glee in warding off friends who did not recognize him. Gabe was in his element, of course, chatting with anyone and everyone and swooping from group to group. Any questions about Jack’s presence were brushed off with “he’s around here somewhere” and a chuckle about his costume. Reinhardt, Jack saw, was dressed in something _beyond_ ostentatious with gold thread everywhere and a ridiculous hat. He felt like he ought to recognize the costume, but couldn’t place it.

Shortly after spotting Reinhardt, Gabe began stalking him with overdone dramatics and Jack pretended to be ignorant of his presence as he gripped his cleaver and began stalking the Crusader-turned-priest, who was either _actually_ tipsy or an excellent actor. Jack lunged just as Gabe lunged, and Reinhardt turned in the same moment to regard them both with an expression of surprised glee.

“A bride and groom!” His booming voice gathered all eyes to them. “And you have come to me to get married?”

“Yes,” Gabe said dryly, and Reinhardt laughed.

“Mawwiage!” declared the Crusader, and _then_ Jack recognized the impressive clergyman costume. “Mawwiage is wat bwings us togever today.”

The crowd closed, fully half of the attendees encircling them, chuckling and tittering at the mangled words and the incongruity of Dracula and some poor murdered bride instead of Prince Humperdink and Princess Buttercup.

“Mawwiage, dat bwessed arrangement, dat dweam wifin a dweam.” Reinhardt paused, either for drama or for Gabe’s subtle nod that yes, he’d ambushed the right couple. “Awe you...in wuv?”

“We are,” Jack answered, not trying to disguise his voice.

Reinhardt beamed. “Den wuv, _twuuuue_ wuv, wiww fowwow you foweva! Do you...take dis man?”

“I do,” Jack said quickly.

“And do you,” Reinhardt asked Gabe, “take dis...?”

“Regularly,” Gabe answered to more laughter. “I do.”

“Den tweasuwe your wuv,” he commanded, taking their hands and placing them together. There was a dramatic pause, and then he declared triumphantly, “MAN AND WIFE!”

The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter, applauding as Gabe picked Jack up in a bridal carry and forming a pathway for them as Gabe proceeded to carry his new husband away from the beaming Crusader. Jack struggled to be set down once they cleared the edge of the crowd, and Gabe relented - at the cost of what was possibly the strangest kiss of their lives, and yet, all Jack felt was elation.

They were _married_.

Before the kiss even ended, they found themselves hugged by an Ana in armor, who promptly congratulated them on the effectiveness of Jack’s costume. Reinhardt was hot on her heels, ‘apologizing’ for having ‘imposed’ on them like that, to which they both declared that no, it was fine. Torbjörn was there, too, gruffly admitting it was a good gag, and then they were surrounded by their friends and the party, as far as Jack was concerned, _really_ got started. Without having to keep his identity secret anymore, he was free to laugh and joke and eat and drink. He came close to winning the impromptu limbo contest but slipped on his dress, gleefully chased a junior officer dressed as Chicken Boo while brandishing his cleaver, and sat cuddled tipsily up to his secret husband while Reinhardt kept them all spellbound with this year’s Halloween story.

Both he and Gabriel were weaving slightly by the time they made their way back to their quarters, and extricating themselves from their costumes was accomplished clumsily. The “get all this makeup off us” shower was a lot more fun, Jack thought dizzily through a fanged blowjob. Then they were clean and damp, sprawled on their bed and kissing hungrily, because this was their _wedding night_ and they’d both spent the evening worked up enough that there was no chance of them _not_ consummating their marriage, no matter how much they’d had to drink. Although they hadn’t exactly been chaste over the course of their relationship, somehow this felt like their first time being intimate, and it was _amazing_.

* * *

Morning arrived with no hangover, thankfully, and Jack spent a moment being grateful for his supersoldier metabolism. Then he remembered what had happened last night, and rolled over to wake _his husband_ with a kiss.

“Morning, babe,” he murmured as Gabriel grumbled and turned away from the sunlight, blindly trying to burrow into Jack’s chest. “Happy birthday.”

Gabriel froze, then looked up into Jack’s face, his expression slowly melting from unhappiness to elation. “We’re _married,_ ” he breathed before surging up for a much more enthusiastic kiss. “My love. My _husband_.”

“Your husband,” Jack agreed giddily. “For better or worse, in sickness and health.”

“Until one of us gets our ass kicked by the Grim Reaper trying to keep him from claiming the other,” Gabe joked. Then his expression softened. “Jack...I don’t want our jobs to come between us. I know sometimes you need to be able to deny things, so I’ll make you a promise: I will always be as forthcoming with you as I can, and if you ever ask me anything, you’ll get an honest answer.”

“I appreciate that,” Jack replied, his voice soft. “And in turn, I’ll always be as honest with you as I can. I don’t want our jobs to come between us, either. _Nothing_ is more important to me than you.”

“Oh, Jackie, the song of my heart, my husband, you are the brightest star in my sky and I will do anything to keep you safe.”

For half a second Jack frowned, trying to figure out why something his husband had said was nagging at him, and then he was being kissed so happily and so thoroughly that there was no room for thought.

* * *

Their secret marriage didn’t change anything about how they did their jobs, they discovered. They still played it platonic in public, with official meetings to discuss Blackwatch business and a lot of evasion and ‘best you not know’ that turned, in private, into full briefings with plenty of detail. Jack sometimes had to do some creative telling of partial truths as a result, but he didn’t mind. In a way, that aspect of it was like being back under Gabriel’s command only this time, the goal was less immediate and more broad than ‘defeat these omnics’.

It was a few years before Jack noticed that his husband had started smoking.

He knew about Gabriel’s...unique abilities, of course. All of the original Strike Team did. Hard to miss with all the times their commander was suddenly where he needed to be, or suddenly not where he had been. He envied the utility of it, if not the increased metabolic drain it placed on Gabriel’s body. The mechanics of it all escaped him, and he wasn’t sure even Gabriel understood _how_ he was able to do the things he did.

Jack learned about the other abilities later, and although he’d never asked, he was fairly certain that Gabe hadn’t known during the Crisis that he could drain life from enemy soldiers to heal himself. They hadn’t been fighting humans, after all. And while he had spent more than a few nights quietly struggling with the ethics of Gabe’s abilities, in the end, he had to admit that he trusted Gabriel to not misuse it, and he’d rather Gabriel use it and come back than not come back at all.

But black smoke emanating from Gabe’s skin? That was a new and distressing development.

At first, it was just in moments of intense physical stress - little wisps of black smoke drifting away from his skin. He wouldn’t have noticed at all if the physical stress hadn’t been ‘trying not to orgasm while being sucked off’ and thus, his face was right next to Gabe’s skin. His husband hadn’t even been aware that it was happening until Jack brought it up, and they spent hours talking about the different SEP experiences their respective units had gone through - something they’d previously shuddered away from, given the horrific nature of the processes they’d been subjected to.

“There were ten guys in my unit,” Gabriel said, his voice muffled by Jack’s chest. “I was the only one who made it out alive.”

“We had twenty,” Jack said quietly. “We came out with five. Six guys had heart attacks. One beat his head against a wall until he cracked his skull open. Most of the others had organ failure. Two hung themselves.”

Gabriel shuddered. “We lost five to teleporting into objects, but their vitals had been unstable already. I think they did it deliberately - go out painlessly because your head’s now fused with a wall, you know? My bunkmate got into the kitchen and ate something like half his body weight in assorted foodstuffs. They hauled him off and no one would tell me what happened to him, but the other three...” He swallowed, pressing his face tighter into Jack’s chest. “The other three...they dissolved. One from the inside. One from the outside. One just all over. I still have nightmares about them sometimes. I don’t want to dissolve, Jackie.”

Jack thought back to all the times he’d envied Gabriel his translocation ability, and swallowed. Suddenly, it didn’t seem nearly as appealing. “You won’t dissolve,” he promised, although they both knew the words were empty. “We’ll find out what they did to your unit and figure out how to fix it.”

After that, Gabriel went digging for SEP’s records while Jack tried to get his hands on them through formal channels, but to no avail. Whether deliberately or accidentally, the records were gone and they spent half the night clinging to each other and discussing what other options they had. The result of this discussion was the decision that they needed to bring someone in who could analyze Gabriel’s DNA for damage, was brilliant enough to potentially reverse-engineer whatever process had caused it, and whose morals were loose enough to do it under the table, as it were.

They found Moira. 

She was brilliant, there was no question of that, and the paper that was quickly scuttling her career proved that if she ever had professional scruples, she’d long since surgically removed and dissected them. Of course, that meant trusting her was a foolish decision, but they didn’t have many other options and certainly none as promising as she was, so Gabriel brought a pair of Blackwatch agents - the two he trusted most, Jesse McCree and Genji Shimada - and made her an offer.

She didn’t refuse.

Now Blackwatch had a rogue scientist on its roster, and Jack worked very hard to keep that a secret while his husband submitted himself for test after test. Initially, he kept Jack updated, but as results came back and experiments kept proving to be failures, he grew more tense and withdrawn. The smoking was getting worse, causing Gabriel to keep as much of his skin covered at all times, and Jack reluctantly began asking directly about his condition. The news wasn’t good. His unique abilities were getting easier to use, but his body seemed to be falling apart. Still, it didn’t occur to either of them to think that Moira was running experiments on the side until the botched Venice mission brought Blackwatch into the light of day.

Ana was exasperated. Gerard was infuriated. Gabriel looked like he was facing the prospect of his organs dissolving, and Jack was beside himself wanting to pull his husband into his arms but having to ask hard questions and pry the answers, one by one, out of the man he loved more than anything.

The debriefing went long into the night, the four of them unraveling the events in Venice and what it meant for Moira’s loyalties. That meant explaining _why_ they’d deliberately brought such an unscrupulous scientist aboard, and _that_ meant explaining what they - specifically, Gabriel - had been letting Moira experiment with.

By the end of it, they were all sitting around the table dejectedly. Moira had apparently been refining Gabriel’s abilities and building an army of test subjects, and Antonio had been the bait used to lure Gabriel into the trap.

“With any luck,” Gerard sighed, rubbing his temples, “the four of you - three of you? - will have proven to her that there’s nothing like the original, and Talon won’t be creating another army of these genetically-modified soldiers at us.”

“I’d like to...” Ana’s sentence degenerated into a string of vengeful-sounding Arabic. “...but if we deal with her permanently, that leaves Gabriel back at square one.”

“I’m at square one anyway,” he sighed. “I can’t trust that anything she does to me will be what I want.”

Jack cleared his throat. “Most importantly, we have to think about what she’ll do if she figures out we’re on to her.”

That was a depressing and terrifying thought, and they talked it over without finding a solution until finally Ana pointed out that it was late, they were going in circles, and they could talk about it when they were rested. With a halfhearted agreement that would just have to pretend they didn’t know and hope for the best until they figured something better out, they retired to get what sleep they could still squeeze out of the night.

Amelie’s abduction distracted them all, and Gerard’s murder hit the three of them particularly hard.

“It _had_ to be her,” Gabriel repeated, over and over, pacing up and down the conference room. “It _had_ to be. We could have stopped her. We could have saved him.”

“You don’t know that, Gabriel,” Ana chided.

He stopped dead, fists clenched at his sides, eyes shut. “We could have _tried_.”

That night, he was tense and quiet.

“I’m going on the offensive,” he said in a low voice. “I’m going to invent a full persona for my mercenary and look for opportunities to infiltrate Talon.”

“Follow Moira,” Jack suggested quietly, holding his husband tight. “The UN is calling for blood, and she’d be the easiest one to throw under the bus even if I _weren’t_ looking for a way to get her out where she can’t stab us in the back anymore.”

Gabriel grunted. “She’ll know it’s me, but she’ll also know she has me by the balls because of my condition, and she’ll _love_ having that little secret. I’ll think about it.”

Jack kissed his temple. “Keep me informed, babe. You know I’m behind you all the way.”

“I know,” Gabe said, his voice tired but warm. “Thank you.”

* * *

Blackwatch being suspended didn’t hamper “Reaper” any, of course, and Jack invented plausible excuses whenever his husband went out on a secret mission. Half of the Blackwatch resources weren’t on an official list anyway, so it was easy enough for him to sneak out and back in again. Gabe reported on his missions at night, after he got back, and they discussed potential next moves. With how strained things were becoming from the UN, it was almost a relief to discuss these off-the-books missions, and Jack began to have wistful thoughts of going on missions with his husband.

When Gabe came back with news that there was going to be an attack, Jack saw his opportunity. The explosions leveled Overwatch’s Swiss headquarters, but although both of them were reported dead, neither of their bodies were found.

Somewhere else in the world, Jack shrugged into the 76 jacket that had been a secret anniversary present. He kissed his husband, and then Gabriel donned a bone-white mask and pulled his two monstrous shotguns out of nowhere.

“Let’s go get you some toys, Jackie,” he purred.

Jack grinned. “I’m right behind you, babe.”

* * *

‘Recall’ era

* * *

_I think I found Ana,_ read the coded message.

Jack frowned at it behind his visor for a long minute before composing his reply. _Are you sure?_

_Sniper in Cairo who follows our hunting patterns from the Crisis? Who else could it be?_

Gabriel made a good point, and Jack allowed himself to contemplate the hope that Ana was actually alive - they’d both suspected, but were afraid to let themselves believe it - for a handful of breaths before locking that flood of tangled emotions back down. If Ana was alive, what did that change? How did they go about making contact with her? Jack shook his head irritably; he wasn’t the strategist. Never had been.

_What’s the plan?_

It was a minute before his husband’s reply came in. _We lure her out. Reverse trap. You as bait._

_But Gabe, that means..._

It meant that both of their covers - Soldier 76 and Reaper - would meet, and there was a very real risk of blowing one or both.

_Can you think of a better way to lure her out?_

Jack chuckled dryly to himself. Gabriel was right; if there was anything that would convince Ana to leave her cover, it would be the two of them having a fistfight. “Idiot boys”, she’d called them many times during the Crisis, and she wouldn’t be able to resist putting her idiot boys in their places yet again.

_Guess I’m coming to Cairo,_ Jack replied, feeling the scar pull at his lips as he smiled.

_I’ll roll out the black carpet for you. Ping me when you arrive._

_Roger that._

The connection closed, and Jack swung himself down from the rafters he’d been crouched in. It had been far too long since he’d seen his husband face to face, and even if they were going to be staging a fight, he was looking forward to it.

* * *

Cairo was just as damned hot as he remembered, and he was scowling behind his visor as he stalked towards Hakim’s compound. Nothing fancy, Gabe had told him. Just a quick thrust, like a battering ram. In and out.

That made him snicker silently. He could think of more fun _in and out_ to be doing with his husband, although ideally not with Ana watching.

He hoped, as he cheerfully threw two dozen of Hakim’s men around, that Ana _was_ watching. Gabe hadn’t given him orders past ‘improvise angrily’, so he stared at the compound gate for a long moment and let the camera register his presence before claiming an earpiece from a fallen thug and listening.

_“Any progress on our ghost?”_

Gabe’s growl was more strained, more mechanical than it had been, and in a fit of impatience Jack ignored the gate entirely to parkour his way over the wall. There was a single guard waiting for him, and he charged the unfortunate sap, ripped the firearm out of his hands, and pistol-whipped him with his own weapon before shouting, “Where is he?”

The barked demand rang out over the courtyard as he activated his visor, scanning not for “Reaper” but for Ana.

“Right here, Jack,” came the strained growl from behind him, and he had a half a breath to brace himself before the bark of a shotgun kicked him in the back like an unruly OR-15. “Always rushing in,” Reaper taunted as Jack lay, stunned and panting, on the ground. “I know your every move before you even think it.”

_Because you’re the one planning it,_ Jack thought with a slight grin.

“Always have,” continued Reaper. “Always will.”

_Until death do us part because one of us got his ass kicked by the Grim Reaper._

“I’ve been looking for you since Switzerland,” Reaper declared, and Jack was glad the visor hid most of his expression because this was...it was Gabe being a theater nerd, it had to be. “Knew it’d take more than that to kill you. Now here you are,” he growled in cold satisfaction. “This is how it should have been.”

Before Jack could shake the pain off enough to figure out a response, there was a sharp buzz that ripped through the air like a pissed-off hornet and Reaper let out a sound of annoyance. Then a second buzz stung him in the arm, and the pain...vanished.

“Get in there, Jack!”

The shout came from on top of one of the walls, and Jack tackled his disguised husband to hide the fact that he was full of _glee_ instead of rage. Their plan had worked, and Ana was really and truly alive! The punches he rained on Gabriel’s mask were mostly for show, and when Gabe threw him off, he would swear his husband was a hair away from dancing with him. They traded blows, almost too excited to make it look good, until Gabe knocked him on his back and Ana took another shot that glanced off the spiked bracers that were a part of Reaper’s outfit. In a flash Gabe was across the courtyard and up the wall, Jack rolling over to try to see whatever confrontation they were having, but Ana knocked him off the edge and followed him over.

Then she ripped off his mask, and recoiled.

“What happened to you?” Ana gasped, and Jack wondered with a sick lurch how badly Gabe’s condition had deteriorated.

“ _HE_ did this to me, Ana,” came the snarled response. “ _They_ left me to become this thing.”

“Gabriel...”

He ignored her shaken tone, his body turning to smoke. “They left you to die. They left me to suffer...never forget that,” Gabriel said as he finished dissolving and flowed away on the hot breeze.

_And you left me to sweet-talk Ana,_ Jack thought as he climbed to his feet, but behind the visor he was smiling.

Ana was alive. Gabriel was...well...he was meeting up with Gabriel in three days, in another part of the world entirely. He’d worry about his husband’s condition then.

* * *

In the early-morning light, Jack skulked through the park, wondering which tree Gabe had meant when he’d told his husband to meet him in “the big tree”. Then he rounded a turn in the path and saw the biggest tree he’d laid eyes on since Gabe had laughed himself sick at Jack’s reaction to seeing a redwood in person, and the mystery was solved.

Of course, knowing _which_ tree did nothing for identifying where in the tree his husband _was_ , and while he was able to vault up the trunk and grab hold of the first branch easily enough, worming his way through the arboreal maze of branches was easier said than done.

“This takes me back,” he grunted as he shifted his foot on one branch, reaching for a second while bracing himself against a third. “Was a lot easier when I was a kid, though.”

From somewhere above, Gabriel’s laughter floated down. “Getting stiff, old man?”

“If I am, you gonna take care of it?” Jack teased back, smiling behind the tactical visor. “Besides, you’re older than me, remember.”

“You know I’m kidding, Jackie.”

“I know.” A glance upwards showed Reaper, sans mask, lounging several feet above him. “I just meant that when I was a kid, the spaces between the branches were smaller.” He paused. “Also, I wasn’t wearing nearly this much.”

Gabriel laughed again. “Don’t make me imagine you wearing nearly nothing, please. Not when we don’t have the luxury of catching up _properly_.”

Jack stopped to laugh for a minute before pulling himself up onto a broad branch with a crook perfect for leaning back against. As soon as he was settled, he pulled the visor off and tucked it away. “What was with all that crap you were spewing in Cairo? ‘This is how it should have been’ and ‘they left you to die’?”

“Red herrings for Hakim. Hopefully it muddies the trail some. It’s good to see you again, Jackie,” Gabriel said softly.

His face, Jack saw to his relief, looked normal and not like whatever horror had caused Ana to recoil.

“It’s good to see you again, too, babe,” Jack replied in an equally soft voice. “And it’s _really_ good to see your face looking like a face.”

Gabriel grimaced. “How bad did I traumatize Ana?”

“Enough that I got off with minimal scolding for having put on that show with you.” Jack grinned, but it faded. “Gabe...how is...?”

“I’m stable,” Gabriel assured him quickly. “I’m not getting any worse.”

“But you’re not getting any better, either.”

Gabe looked away. “Yeah. I may have to just steal Moira’s research and brave Angela’s disappointment.”

It was Jack’s turn to grimace. “In retrospect, we probably should have done that in the first place.”

“Yeah. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. But hey,” Gabriel continued in a brighter voice, “I may have a shot at getting somewhere _useful_ in Talon. Doomfist’s breaking out soon.”

Jack frowned. “Akande?”

“Yup. Politics in Talon are about to get interesting. Wish me luck with him not figuring out who I am, though.”

“Luck,” Jack said obediently. Then he laughed. “Oh, wow. I haven’t thought about him in forever.”

That got him a quizzical look. “Akande Ogundimu?”

“Nah.” Jack shook his head. “There was a guy...back, way back before we started dating. Back when I was still looking for windows to jump out of.”

“Wow. That _is_ way back. So this guy...?”

Jack felt heat steal up his cheeks, but didn’t turn away from his husband’s curious look. “He...I never figured out who he was. Called him Swak.”

Gabriel snorted. “How romantic.”

“Hush,” Jack chided, blushing harder. “It stands for _Sealed With A Kiss_. He wrote me love letters. I had a secret admirer, Gabe.”

“Ooooh, a secret admirer.” Gabriel was grinning broadly. “And you’re blushing. Do I need to be worried? Are you carrying a torch for this _Swak_ guy after all these years?”

“Not like that,” protested Jack. “I just wish...he was really supportive at a time when I really needed support, and he believed in me and helped me believe in myself, and he probably thinks I’m dead and I never got a chance to thank him,” he finished plaintively. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

The grin had vanished from Gabriel’s face, leaving a thoughtful frown. “You never told me any of this. You never mentioned it to _anyone_.”

“I felt silly,” Jack said quietly. “The Strike-Commander, carrying love letters like lucky charms?”

“You...” Gabriel swallowed. “You carried them on you?”

Jack nodded. “Always had the latest one on me somewhere. Numbered and dated them so I could read them when I needed something to pick me up. When they stopped...” He took a deep breath. “Swak said I’d outgrown the need for a secret admirer, and I _had_. So when I got the last one, I tied them up in a purple ribbon like some Victorian lady and I hid them with my other treasures. Inside this jacket, actually.”

Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Then you...they...”

“They survived the explosion, yeah,” Jack admitted, blushing again. “I put them in a secure lockbox and buried them by the barn on my cousin’s farm. Didn’t want to risk anything happening to them.”

“You’re a romantic, Jackie.”

Jack grinned back at his husband. “Nah. _He_ was the romantic. I mean, seriously, who writes love letters? Love letters _in purple ink_ and sealed with a kiss? An actual kiss, Gabe, he put on lip gloss and kissed the envelopes.”

“You’re going to mock him for doing the thing _right?_ Come on, Jack,” Gabriel teased. “If you’re going to send a love letter as a secret admirer, you have to go the whole nine yards. Fancy ink, fountain pen, seal it with a kiss...and clearly it worked, if you carried them around.” His voice softened. “You really carried them around?”

“Yeah.” Jack swallowed, his mind having caught a single word that was sending his pulse pounding. “Gabe? I didn’t mention the fountain pen.”

Gabriel froze. Then, slowly, a blush stole up his cheeks. “I would have told you if you asked,” he said quietly. “But you never talked about them and I didn’t know...”

It was him. After all this time, he finally learned the identity of the man who was so clever, so observant, who adored him completely and had said so in words as elegant as his writing. On the one hand, he felt silly for not having ever suspected Gabriel. But on the other hand, apparently Gabriel had been in suspense, too, and now he finally had a chance to thank his secret admirer.

“Didn’t know how I would react to learning it was you?” Jack shifted on his branch as his husband looked away, still blushing.

“Yeah,” Gabe muttered.

Carefully, he stood on his branch and leaned over, gripping the trunk of the tree for support as Gabriel looked up in surprise.

Whatever else was happening with his husband’s body, his lips were as soft as the first time they’d kissed.

“Thank you,” he murmured, feeling like he was many years younger and reading the words _secret admirer_ for the first time. “Of all the possible outcomes for identifying my secret admirer, this was the best one.”

Shyly, Gabriel grinned up at him. “I didn’t want- you were so broken up over Vincent. I didn’t want to be a rebound, but I couldn’t think of any other way to give you the comfort you desperately needed without making it awkward. So I poured it all out in purple ink and hoped for the best.”

“And did you get it?” Jack asked breathily, Gabe’s hands tugging him gently down.

For a long minute, the kiss was Gabe’s only answer. When Jack had thoroughly melted onto his husband, Gabriel chuckled while hugging him tight. “Oh yes, Jackie,” he murmured. “ _You_ are the best.”


End file.
